“He lost?”

Helmut anxiously wandered around his office inside the Vatican and murmured the same words over and over. He felt his own words to be unfamiliar—he couldn’t believe what had just been reported.

‘Barth Baltic lost? He really lost?’

Today was the day when the Order of the Capital and Barth Baltic returned to the holy city of Torra. It had only been a few days ago that Barth Baltic convened and led the army to the battlefield without consent from the Church, using his authority as the Regent. The number of troops he had managed to gather numbered three hundred thousand men—almost one third of the Imperial Army.

The fact that Barth Baltic was able to gather that many troops despite his deteriorating public opinion meant that he could have overturned the empire at any time had he wanted.

However, Barth had come back after being defeated. Such a fact was already hard to believe and understand, but there was something else that was even more difficult to understand—the three hundred thousand Imperial troops that Barth Baltic had convened came back with so few losses that it would be more accurate to call Barth Baltic’s return a withdrawal rather than defeat.

“Barth Baltic lost?”

“...The soldiers who witnessed everything reported that the Regent and the self-proclaimed emperor had a confrontation. The Regent decided to return after losing...